


Home Sweet Home

by sirbartonslady



Category: Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: Multi, also a one-line hint of Fang/Vanille
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirbartonslady/pseuds/sirbartonslady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serah returns home from work a little early to see her household in chaos. Fortunately, it's nothing Snow can't handle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Sweet Home

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: Post-Lightning Returns slight AU? (HOW do you classify the post-LR new world?)
> 
> Note: Don’t take this too seriously. We were brainstorming “stay-at-home dad Snow” and I just ran with the idea. I’ve never played the games myself (lack the console to do so yet), so I only watched my friend play them, and when the plotbunny hit, I referred to a few expert friends for details. Otherwise, I just let my imagination run wild.
> 
> Disclaimer: It goes without saying, but I will state it nonetheless: I own nothing of this franchise, it belongs to SquareEnix, et al. This is mostly wish-fulfillment and me responding to badgering by Digibutt.
> 
> Credits: Special thanks (in alphabetical order) to Charliez, Digital_Eon, and Hikamitz. Hikamitz is the one who played the game for me to watch, and who has answered many of my technical questions about the series over the months, and Digi and Char helped me brainstorm this pile of silliness. Enjoy!

The first thing Serah Farron Villiers noticed when she got home from work that day was that the front door to her house was slightly ajar. That wasn't normal. Her husband's motorcycle was in its parking space in the driveway, as was the family van that he never used because he preferred to take the kids to school on the motorcycle when he could. (She never could get him to see reason that it was unsafe to drive a motorcycle with that many children piled on it. Fortunately, there was a school bus, so he didn't have to use the motorcycle to shuttle kids to school often.) Obviously he was home, and it was early evening, so the kids would be home too.

Propping her hands on her hips, she stared at the ajar door for a few seconds, as if staring at it would make it behave and close obediently. But nothing of the sort happened, so she hitched her satchel up on her shoulder and strode forward, pushing the door open all the way.

What greeted her upon stepping through the doorway was the smell of soiled diapers. Not the best smell to walk into, but she'd come home to worse. The house was in some disarray as well. The toddler twins were playing in their playpen. Cid had thrown most of his toys out of the pen, so the floor was littered with bright-colored plushies and plastic toys.

Rayne, their oldest child, was sitting on the sofa with a sewing project in her hands. She looked up in confusion as the door swung open; "Oh, hi Mom. You're home early! Daaaaaad! Mom's home!"

There was a crashing sound in the kitchen followed by a muffled censored curse, and then Serah's husband Snow Villiers appeared, covered in flour. "Welcome home, darling. Dinner won't be for another hour. You're home early. Is everything all right?"

Serah grinned; "Everything is fine, we just decided to leave a little early because there was no more we could do today. How are things around here? I think someone needs a diaper change."

"Augh, I know, I know, I'm working on it." He dusted off the flour and threw a towel onto the hutch as he stepped forward toward her. "Sit down, my love, take a load off your feet. Rayne, do me a favor and get some tea for your mother."

"Okay, Dad." The girl put aside her project and bounced to her feet.

In no time, Serah found herself ensconced on her favorite chair, her feet propped up, and a cup of soothing tea in her hands. It was so nice to come home from a stressful day of meetings and budgeting (she sometimes regretted getting that promotion out of teaching and into administration!) to be pampered by her family. Plus, sometimes, the entertainment, low-brow as it was, couldn't be topped. Like right now: the dog was chasing the cat throughout the entire house, and Snow was hollering for Peeko to come and get her dog out of his way so he could get dinner ready without being tripped.

Frost came downstairs after some loud prompting from Snow, and he took care of the twins' diapers. He grumbled the entire time, but he did it. Peeko and Armand came down after a while (they had been doing homework, which Frost was trying to avoid doing, it seemed) as well to greet their mother.

All four of the oldest children were orphans that they had adopted; it wasn't until a couple of years ago that Serah had been able to become pregnant, and so they had filled their household with orphans because that was just how Snow operated; he couldn't resist pouring love into a child who seemed unwanted. Rayne, the teenager, was the oldest orphan, adopted when they first moved here to New Concordia a little over ten and a half years ago. Eleven-year-old Frost was her real brother -- their parents had died when Frost was an infant -- but Snow and Serah hadn't been able to adopt him until he was five due to a legal quagmire. Peeko was eight and Armand was seven. The twins Cid and Lulu, Snow and Serah's natural children (born after exhaustive attempts to conceive and a long, difficult pregnancy) were almost two years old now. Lulu had her father's eyes and hair, and Cid resembled his auntie, Claire "Lightning" Farron.

"Peeko, _get this dog out of the kitchen!_ " Snow hollered just as there was a loud clattering of a pan crashing to the ground. Serah winced and hoped that it wasn't a pan full of cooking food.

Shortly after their wedding, Serah accepted a job at the Academy under the leadership of her friend Hope Estheim, and she and Snow had looked for a place to live in the suburbs around Academia. New Concordia was a long commute from the Academy (if she got caught in traffic, it could be over an hour each way), but it was worth it nowadays. New Concordia had a great school district for the kids, and due to its proximity to the agrarian countryside, it had a delightful Farmers' Market every weekend. Sazh Katzroy lived about an hour south of them, so they sometimes saw him (at least once a month, sometimes more) at the Farmers' Market. His chocobo farm wasn't doing very well, but he had a chicken farm as well, and so he came each month to sell off excess eggs. It was good to see Sazh regularly; ever since his son Dajh got old enough to leave home and attend the Academy, Sazh had been somewhat lonely. Hence the chocobo and chicken farms, to keep him busy and earn him a living.

"Someone do something about that cat, please!"

The cat, a fluffy white calico named Snowball (Snow was still annoyed at that name, even now!), came careening into the room and leaped into the air, landing on the back of Serah's chair with a thump. Then the dog, a large red hound, came galloping into the room, and skidded to a halt when Serah glared at him. Peeko finally caught up to the dog and sheepishly escorted him outside for a while so that he wouldn't get in the way again.

Snow was busy directing the barely-containted chaos of a household full of children; "Armand, it's your turn to set the table tonight, and Frost, it's your turn to do the dishes after dinner."

"Aww, really, Dad? But I have homework!"

"You should have been working on your homework instead of reading those comics! Don't think I don't know what you've been doing, young man! You don't get to get out of your chores. Rayne, please pick up those toys before someone gets hurt. I wish Cid wouldn't throw all his toys everywhere, but I can't seem to convince him that it's not fun."

Smiling to herself, Serah let her gaze drift about her house, settling on one of her favorite photos. It was a photo from just before their wedding, when they were still preparing for it. Their friend Oerba Yun Fang had snapped this one of Snow trying to get the chocobos for the chocobo-drawn carriage to behave themselves. Three of them had been belligerent and had started threatening Snow with their giant talons. In the photo, he was standing with his back to the camera, his arms outstretched toward the chocobos, in an attempt to placate the unhappy giant birds. As she recalled, Sazh had told him this was how he wrangled his chocobos. It hadn't gone well. After the fiasco had been dealt with, Sazh admitted that that was all bullshit and he actually used short whips to drive disobedient young adult chocobos into their pens, because a whip at least got the birds' attention. "I'll give ya points for bravado," he'd said, "but you lose points for being dumber than a box of rocks and believing my crap."

Serah chuckled at the memory and took another sip from her tea. This domestic bliss was what she'd fought for, for so long. It seemed like lifetimes ago. Maybe it really was. Her memories of a previous life of fighting and struggling against a dire fate, fal'Cie and their l'Cie, the focus and the aftermath... leaping through rivers of time and ending up in the most god forsaken places. They'd all gone through so much hell, it was amazing that they could adapt to this peaceful and idyllic life.

She didn't really know what her sister Lightning was doing nowadays, beyond the vague description of "traveling the world." She hadn't seen Lightning since her wedding almost eleven years ago. Lightning lived very far away, and while the two sisters wrote regularly, there wasn't any further contact. Lighting knew her little sister was a mother of six now, and she seemed to accept it. She had even sent Serah a beautiful charm bracelet shortly after the twins were born, a "mother's bracelet" with six little charms on it, each representing one of her children. Serah missed her sister, really. It was too bad that the new world was so vast and Lightning was so determined to see all of it, to the point where she was gone this long. Come to think of it, it was almost eight years now since they'd seen Fang, and five since they'd seen Fang's wife Vanille.

"Mom? Mom, dinner's ready."

Serah blinked her eyes open and realized that she'd dozed off. Rayne was standing by her chair, gently shaking her arm. "Sorry, sweetie. Guess I'm more tired than I thought. This chamomile tea is strong!" She stood up and dusted off her skirt. "So what's for dinner? What'd your dad fix?"

"It's not much," Snow said with a rueful smile as they all gathered around the dinner table with its collection of cookpots full of food. "Hope you don't mind more chicken stew and biscuits, darling. We don't have much else in the pantry. Market day's tomorrow though, and Sazh should be there, so we'll get us some fresh eggs. If he brings enough, I might be able to fix some omelets for everyone tomorrow night."

That brought cheers from the boys and Rayne. Peeko was unimpressed (she didn't like eggs) and Serah just smiled through it all. She was very lucky, really. She had a wonderful, devoted husband, six amazing kids, and a great (if sometimes stressful) job with a wonderful boss. Her life was as close to perfect as it could be.

Dinner was a loud and boisterous affair as always. Frost complained bitterly about his homework and his chores, but after a few scoldings from his father, he piped down and just sulked in between bites. Rayne complained about her sewing project and begged her dad to help her with it. Armand and Peeko argued about... something. Some game they played in their spare time using cards. The twins shrieked and laughed and squalled. Through it all, Snow showed infinite patience. He was a great father, really he was. He lost his temper sometimes with Frost, but Frost was a very difficult, emotionally unstable boy who had been abused horribly by foster parents before the Villiers family finally got to adopt him. It was tough work, being a parent to a boy as difficult as Frost was, but Snow thrived on the challenge.

"Serah, you look so tired. Hard day at work?"

She drew herself out of her reverie again. Snow was seated at the opposite end of the table from her, with the twins in their high chairs on either side of him. He was watching her with those knowing eyes of his.

"Yes, it was a rough day. I don't really want to talk about it, but it wasn't fun. Hope sent me home early because he got so fed up he decided to go home early himself. Speaking of which, I probably should go to bed soon. I have to be in much earlier tomorrow because of today's fiasco."

Frowning briefly, Snow put down the bowl he was dishing out of. "You have been working so hard lately, Serah. I hope things work out soon. You need some time off. We are planning to go as a family to New Bodhum next month for two weeks, remember? We _are_ going to get to go, aren't we? You need the vacation as much as the rest of us."

Every year, at the start of summer, they took a two- or three-week vacation to New Bodhum, to visit his old friends, and to just get away from things. The kids loved the beach, too. It was a nice change of pace for all of them -- the kids got to play on the beach all day, Snow didn't have to tend every domestic chore, and Serah got uninterrupted time with her husband and kids. It was refreshing and she wished they could afford to do it more often. But with six growing kids, they had to be careful how much money they spent, since the trip to New Bodhum was more expensive each year.

"I've reminded Hope about my vacation, yes. He says it's fine." She smiled. "Don't worry, my love, I'll work it out. This is just a very busy time of year for the Academy. And Hope will do what he can for us. He knows how much it means to us to take our annual family vacation."

The table chatter resumed and she listened contentedly through the remainder of the meal. Then, once the children had dispersed to their evening activities (Peeko and Armand still had a little more homework to do, and then their card game they liked to play; Frost had his chores that he'd put off, and Rayne was working on her sewing project for school) Serah returned to her chair for just a little bit of light reading. She didn't realize just how tired she still was until Snow nudged her.

"You dropped your book, Serah. You really should just go to bed, instead of sleeping in the chair. It's not good for your back to sleep in a position like that."

Smiling at him as she stood up, she reached up and pulled his face down for a kiss; "I love you, Snow. Have I mentioned recently how glad I am that I married you?"

He grinned; "I should be offended that the only times you seem to think to say those words to me are when you're really tired. But it's pointless to get upset. Go to bed, Serah. I'll be there soon enough, though I imagine you'll be sound asleep before I get there."

Giving her beloved husband one last kiss, she heeded his suggestion and took herself into the bathroom, where she sponged off, removed her makeup and let her hair down. Then she went into the bedroom, changed into her nightgown, and climbed into the bed. The bedding smelled fresh and clean, meaning he had just laundered it today.

_We have all come a long way from being a rag-tag bunch of l'Cie, haven't we? This world may not be absolutely perfect, but it's so much better than Cocoon and Pulse were. I only wish Lightning would come by for a visit once in a while so she can see what sort of life Snow and I have built together._

The fatigue from a long, difficult week and a hellish day soon clouded out any further thought, and she folded under the weight of sleep. She only barely registered some time later when the bed shifted as Snow climbed in to join her, and pulled her close, cradling her in his arms. Then she returned to the oblivion of sleep in preparation for another day of work.


End file.
